Like one of these... http://www.hi-z.com/websit04.htm
More Thermoelectric Generator Manufacturers referenced here:
http://www.peltier-info.com/generators.html
73,
Steven WI2W
-----Original Message-----
From: amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org] On
Behalf Of G0MRF at aol.com
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 6:47 PM
To: amsat-bb at amsat.org
Subject: [amsat-bb] Thermocouple power
Last week there was an interesting debate about raising the altitude of
a
satellite by using magnertic fields.
Carrying on the wacky ideas theme, I've been looking at producing power
by
using thermocouples and not solar cells.
Question: Does anyone know the 'current' or the impedance of the voltage
source represented by a thermocouple?
A thermocouple generates an emf (voltage) proportional to the difference
in
temperature between its two junctions.
Given that we know a white object in space gets very cold, while
Aluminium
gets very hot it's interesting looking at the possibility of
thermocouple
power....Even if it's just to understand its limitations
A thermocouple can be made very small so it should be possible to
manufacture an array of them in a reasonable space.
Example: A junction of two wires, one made from constantan and one
from
Chromel will generate a voltage of 58 microvolts for every degree
difference
between the junctions.
That means for a 100 degree C difference you generate 5.8mV. For 350
junctions in a chain you generate 2.03 V and for 6 chains (if you wanted
to risk all those junctions in series) you
could have 12.18V
But.........how much power can you draw from it ??
73
David
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